Withdrawal...?

Over the past year I have been drinking tea daily (more like hourly) and a couple weeks ago I simply forgot or was not in the mood for my tea in the morning... I starting feeling a bit unusual towards noon like nothing felt right and I felt overwhelmingly lethargic. I thought to myself it must be something I ate or I slept poorly; but no: over the next 2 to 3 weeks, I was having some pretty surprising symptoms: I had a heart rate of 115 to 120 for a whole week (you can imagine trying to sleep while your body feels like its on the 25th kilometer of a marathon... ) and had the worst headaches in my life by far. At first I was considering all these symptoms as a result of a flu or an illness of some sort, but then I realized that it was because of the tea and I later decided I would not drink tea until the effects would stop and see what would happen. Looking back it was a pretty bad decision, because brewing up a chunk of pu would have been many times easier than feeling like your skin is burning off and your brain has 20 times too much blood in it, but I now realize how physically dependent I was without having any idea or concern about it. I am now slowly beginning to drink tea again (one session every other day) and was wondering if anyone else has gone through something of such astonishing magnitude. I know this has been discussed before but I could not seem to find anyone that went through anything close to what I did.

I never thought to check heart rate, etc. But I can get killer headaches if I miss the morning tea. Drink tea, and it goes away.

We are addicted to many things, the air we breathe, try stopping that for more than a few minutes.

Seriously, yeah, the body does build up "cravings" for tea, I am certain that some of the cravings for tea late at night ... thinking about morning sencha, etc, I am sure part of that is my body talking.

There are far worse things to be "addicted to."

I am not concerned about it, and I continue to drink tea every day virtually w/o fail. There are a lot of other things to worry about.

Likewise, I am quite certain tea everyday is healthy for you. When I am doubting the healthiness of something I eat or drink, I often look at its background and history (Ie: Who or what cultures have/are using it and how healthy is/are that culture/they.) Clearly tea has been around for a longtime in Asia and China and Japan seem to be relatively healthy countries. They drink tea everyday from what I have seen and heard so clearly it is not harmful, I am just unskilled at using it upon myself. Your comparison with air was interesting and I know from past experience that addiction and withdrawal to other substances can be quite horrendous. Tea's pros definitely outweigh it's cons.

I certainly am addicted to tea. I drink it from the time I wake up until the time I go to sleep. If I don't drink tea I go through horrid withdrawl. Headaches, lethargy, etc, but I wouldn't change it for the world. I can't imagine my life without tea and wouldn't want to. I'm sure the amount I drink every day probably isn't healthy though.

I dont have tea right when I wake up...first it´s a glass or two of water and then breakfast but even that if I don´t get my tea on schedule I start getting strong headaches, racing heart and feeling a bit faint

though I dont notice much effect from caffiene...I sure notice the effect of not having it! I suppose I just need it to be "normal"

Even going a half a day without caffeine puts me out. I get extremely tired, lethargic and sick feeling. So I make sure to get my caffeine one place or another. Lately it's been by drinking tea (I'm breaking a big, bad habit of drinking a 12-pk of diet coke a day.)

If I don't have caffeinated tea in the house that I like I'll drink a diet coke or two in the mean time. I've got plenty of tea in the house but none of it I like except for a decaf chai. I have an online order on it's way though. Tomorrow will be a difficult day, not having good tea around, just as it was today. I'll muddle through it. Yes I'm probably going to go to the store and get a box of tea just to tide me over until my order arrives.

Yes, I've had a problem like this. After 1,5 years of hardcore tea drinking (5-7 cups daily) I first started having sleeping problems. When I realized it was the tea I decided not to drink any after 18.00. But later, whenever I went to sleep or sometimes at random (without previous physical strain) my heart would pound really hard and I had chest heaviness and small pains (I was healthy all my life)

After a while of having these symptoms, I was so concerned that I decided to go to the doctor, I did all kinds of heart tests, xrays, blood tests.

It appeared that I had a magnesium deficiency. The doctor told me that tea and coffee washes out the magnesium. I was advised to take a magnesium supplement on a regular basis all the time.

If you drink that much tea daily, it can be bad for you in the long run. Long term magnesium deficiency can cause heart problems, even a heart attack. If you plan on drinking that much you should also consider to take a supplement.

reincarnate wrote:If you drink that much tea daily, it can be bad for you in the long run. Long term magnesium deficiency can cause heart problems, even a heart attack. If you plan on drinking that much you should also consider to take a supplement.

You're absolutely right. I take vitamin supplements just for that reason.

Interesting posts everyone, thanks for the comments and info... At least I know now almost for certain it was the tea. I will try in the future to limit myself in my tea consumption (it will be very hard...) and avoid being addicted, as I believe, as others have stated, too much of anything can make it go from healthy to unhealthy...

1) If you substitute tea by water, will the loss of magnesium be the same ?

2) This thread has people from America, Europe and China. What is a cup ? Makes some difference in a day if you say you are drinking 6 cups or SIX CUPS. Personally a cup for me is what comes out of a full small gaiwan. The double-walled Bodum cup is 100ml and the gaiwan does not fill it all. 6 cups of that = more or less 500 ml. Six mugs, on the other hand yields a totally different daily quantity of tea. Rarely the size of a cup is mentioned in discussions although it does make a difference.

3) Some teas will produce a strong uncomfortable heartbeat. That's the case with the Ten Ren's Dragonwell for instance. I do not know why. I can brew mean strong cups of organic Bi Lu Chun which will give a nice concentrated and very noticeable boost (especially after 2-3 aforementionned small cups) w/o uncomfortable increased heartbeat rate/pression. Same with organic sheng. Nice boosted feeling w/o the uncomfortable (and long-lasting) invreased heartbeat. So far I tend to think chemicals used in cultivation might be the problem, but I'm not sure.

Funny how different people are affected in different ways. I'd venture to say that at least 75% of what I drink daily is some kind of tea... sometimes 100%. My magnesium levels are checked at least once a year with routine bloodwork and I've never been low at all. In fact, I usually run on the higher side of normal. Strange.

kymidwife wrote:Funny how different people are affected in different ways. I'd venture to say that at least 75% of what I drink daily is some kind of tea... sometimes 100%. My magnesium levels are checked at least once a year with routine bloodwork and I've never been low at all. In fact, I usually run on the higher side of normal. Strange.

Sarah

Estrogen increases magnesium absorbtion...so men are more likely to have magnesium deficiencies...also calcium is an antagonist to magnesium so if you´re taking a lot of calcium in your diet or through supplements that can cause problems with low magnesium too...in that case from the ratio being off rather than the absolute levels of magnesium.

Also the water you use for tea and drinking can have magnesium or it might not...hard water can have quite a lot of magnesium...soft water might have none.

So theres a couple of things that can alter how much impact heavy tea drinking would have...

skilfautdire wrote:This thread has people from America, Europe and China. What is a cup ? Makes some difference in a day if you say you are drinking 6 cups or SIX CUPS. Personally a cup for me is what comes out of a full small gaiwan. The double-walled Bodum cup is 100ml and the gaiwan does not fill it all. 6 cups of that = more or less 500 ml. Six mugs, on the other hand yields a totally different daily quantity of tea. Rarely the size of a cup is mentioned in discussions although it does make a difference.